Treasury, and the IRS should remove impediments to audits of large partnerships, like hedge funds, 99 percent of which today escape IRS audits.

Option baskets are being misused and abused to dodge taxes and to circumvent leverage limits.

Congress could go further and adopt the proposal of my colleague from Michigan, Congressman Camp, and tax all derivatives at the end of the year on their market value.

The structures that we have examined today have real consequences because they offload billions of dollars in taxes.

Congress and financial regulators can and should work together to stop these abuses.

I want to thank Senator McCain and his staff for their hard work in making today's hearing and our bipartisan report possible.

The IRS should seek to collect taxes owed on billions of dollars in basket option profits unjustifiably claimed as long-term capital gains.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council, working with other agencies, should establish reporting and data collection requirements to detect and to stop abuse of structured financial products to circumvent leverage limits that safeguard…

Federal financial regulators should make clear to banks that participating in abusive structures designed to avoid leverage limits and taxes is unacceptable and penalize the banks that do.

Mr. President, before the Senator from Tennessee leaves, I wish to thank him very much for joining Senator Boxer and me in this Senate to create a dynamic that will enable us to do our job. He shows time and again the courage to keep out…

One of the things that Senator Isakson looked at and I looked at is just having these kind of advanced directives or other tools be recognized across State lines.

Senator Isakson and I have talked about and introduced legislation focused on advanced illness and that component of life's journey.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Chairman Whitehouse, and thank you, Senator Graham. You have both been great and engaged and effective leaders on this issue.

I share your concern that as we have transitioned to electronic medical records, we now have an online treasure trove of data for cyber criminals to go after?

Is it acceptable, is it possible for us to deal with this threat with a Federal law enforcement response alone? Do we need a partnership from State and local law enforcement?

As Senator Whitehouse referenced, both of our States are blessed to have network warfare squadrons of the National Guard.

The resiliency of our country, our ability to respond to these threats... requires a sort of 'everybody engaged' response.

I led a Congressional delegation back there in 1991 to try to find the truth, what happened to a couple thousand of our men, mostly men, some women.